Friday, July 02, 2010

Beyond parody

The time was that people who like Browne, who had put up so many blacks – to coin a phrase – would do the decent thing and fall on their swords or exile themselves in the country and not be seen in polite company. Nowadays, though, it does not seem to matter how vile your behaviour is, or how dire your record. Nothing is sufficient, it seems, to bar such people from high office.

And this is not harping back to a past that never actually existed. Things were different once. Now, the ruling classes have lost the plot. They have become so detached, and so confident in their power, that they feel they can take the piss and get away with it. And, for a time, they can. But the reckoning always comes.